


Time Was

by Fabrisse



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-20
Updated: 2007-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 14:14:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/pseuds/Fabrisse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU Episode tag for Moebius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Was

He watched Jack die before his eyes. A random shot from a staff weapon, probably a ricochet, blew out the center of his chest.

It hadn't been easier when Sam was taken, but somehow her death was easier - maybe it was because he was the one to pull the trigger. Daniel shot three times as soon as her eyes glowed. He hadn't hesitated; it was the only way to be certain the symbiote and sarcophagus wouldn't heal her.

Teal'c would have been proud -- saddened, of course, but proud nonetheless. He was the first to die, though. He took his own life about a day before the tretonin was due to run out. Maybe it was a noble thing to do, but it didn't make Daniel miss him any less.

Sam's capture was the impetus for starting the uprising early. Just as Teal'c's death had been the impetus for Sam to wander off on her own and get captured -- not that she'd gone easily. There were still some of Ra's Jaffa who walked funny, and Colonel-Doctor managed to kill two of them outright.

The deaths of two minor Jaffa focused Ra's attention on their section of the workmen's village. Thirty people were about to be marched to their deaths. He couldn't blame Jack for reacting, for starting the uprising.

The stores of weapons were breached, but the fact that the beginnings were staggered, not concerted, made it too easy for Ra's Jaffa to subdue each sector individually.

When Ra paraded his "daughter" Sekhmet in front of the crowds, Daniel was the only one left with a weapon. He'd been careful, and he had it with him.

Three shots from the zat and Sekhmet disappeared. Daniel wondered if her traditional portrayal as a lioness had been due to Sam's blonde hair.

There were so many things to wonder about, alone in the desert night.

  


**. . .**

  


The failed uprising and the public death of a Goa'uld were all the warning Ra needed. He left Earth taking the Stargate with him.

Ra left Earth before he'd founded the colony at Abydos.

That was the moment when Daniel knew for certain that the time line was overwhelmingly corrupted. Sha're would never be born. Skaara and Kasuf, all he'd known, all that he'd destroyed were now never to be.

Even a linguist could hate the vagaries of verbs when time travel was involved.

  


**. . .**

  


This would be the third rewind crew.

The first had been Kowalski, Ferretti, and Bra'tac. In their timeline, Jack had killed Daniel on Abydos and then remained on the Abydos side of the gate to blow the nuclear weapon. Teal'c had been executed by killing his Prim'ta when he tried to help the Tau'ri escape on Chulak. Bra'tac had been recalled as First Prime, turned from Apophis, and managed to get them the hell out.

When the recording device had been discovered, so had the time travel module. There'd been no Jack, so every person at the SGC had been given a chance to try. Kowalski had the Ancient gene and had brought them back. Unfortunately, he wasn't as good a pilot as Jack, and after the landing, they couldn't return.

Since the timing was off on their attempt and the Stargate was already gone, they'd taken language lessons from Daniel and Bra'tac and wandered off about a year ago to find work more to their tastes. Neither was exactly an artisan type, and, even in this more primitive time, each felt himself called to be a warrior.

Daniel wished them well and let them follow their path.

Bra'tac stayed and they discussed what to do when his symbiote matured. Unfortunately, the symbiote was either more mature than they'd thought or, contrary to what the Jaffa had always been told, the symbiotes could hear.

Daniel found Bra'tac dead and one of their followers gone forever, presumably now a Goa'uld.

It was difficult, but he had found a way to let Kowalski and Ferretti know.

The second rewind crew had arrived too late as well. Apparently, the immediate future didn't hold Daniel, Kowalski, or Ferretti finding the Goa'uld created from Bra'tac's symbiote because the people who'd come along for this trip were a Jack with a First Prime symbol on his head, a Sam who was a Jaffa priestess, and a Goa'ulded Daniel.

They'd all been killed within five minutes of the time-travel ship appearing.

Daniel had asked his friends to bury the ship near where the camcorder was already sealed and hidden.

Daniel would die alone in the past knowing nothing but fear for the future.

  


**. . .**

  


He woke in a cold sweat.

It was another nightmare, or maybe time travel did something to the brain. Teal'c had died only a week earlier.

But when Sam was captured, -- this time, Daniel's mind kept saying -- Daniel convinced Jack that the two of them had to get her back. Just the two of them. No uprising, no locals.

He shouldn't have been surprised to wake up two days later with a hangover. Jack had been studying with the local healers as well as the local potters. Apparently, even in Ancient Egypt there was such a thing as slipping someone a mickey.

The rescue hadn't worked. Sam had been invaded by Sekhmet already -- the seductiveness of blue eyes and blonde hair proved too much for Ra ("Again," Daniel's mind echoed.). Jack had killed her, but it hadn't been public.

Daniel stood on the sidelines as Jack was staked out under the desert sun. It was a brutal way to die. Jack was already whispering the Egyptian word for water.

Ra made a speech from behind his mask about how he was all knowing and all seeing. As he pointed to Jack he said that this man had been thinking -- merely thinking -- impurely about the gods, but Ra knew and Ra punished.

The First Prime picked a comely young boy from the crowd. He and his family weren't part of the planned uprising. They were true believers, loyal to the Great God Ra.

There was a pinprick of recognition. It would take a few more years before this boy was a fully mature man, but already the vanity and androgynous beauty were there. In Daniel's timeline, the "real" future, this boy would be the host to Ra that he and Jack destroyed on the first visit to Abydos.

Maybe this time, it would all go right.

The youth was handed a staff weapon and shown what to do. Daniel moved a little so Jack's eyes could find his.

Teal'c and Sam were gone, but Jack understood that Daniel couldn't interfere. He was resigned to dying in this time and in this place.

One hand was separated from Jack's body, but his eyes never left Daniel's. The only water that Daniel could give his friend was already making slow tracks down his face.

As another limb was blown off by the staff weapon, Daniel bit his tongue to keep himself from crying out.

People who knew the SG-1 team, who'd been their protectors and friends reached out and held him in place. Daniel felt his muscles tense against them - fight or flight begging to be used.

Daniel's will was strong enough to do no more than flinch when the next blast rang out, and the next. This boy would be Ra all right. Like called to like.

The First Prime judged the crowd perfectly and whispered to the youth that the next blast must kill.

Daniel's eyes were still locked with Jack's as the light of life finally went out of them.

  


**. . .**

  


The years were long and lonely. He'd thought that this time he was successful. The weapons caches were being filled and the uprising would take place at about the right time.

A concerted uprising with the Stargate captured and buried would be perfect. The colony bound for Abydos had left two years earlier. He'd found ways to insert himself into the community. He'd wanted to go with them, but one of the villages hiding weapons had needed some help, and Daniel rushed off to do what he could.

He heard about the colony leaving as soon as he returned.

Right up to the moment when the rewind team arrived, he thought everything was fine. Well, everything that hadn't involved the team members and friends he'd already lost.

This crew was impossible. A Jack that hadn't heeded the call, a Sam that hadn't entered the military, and a Teal'c who was only newly self-liberated didn't seem like much at this moment.

But they'd killed a version of him who'd been snaked, and, in a quiet moment with Teal'c, Daniel ascertained that, as odd and out of it as that version of himself had been, he still hadn't broken under torture. If their Daniel had been stubborn, then maybe these versions of his friends would have enough underlying similarities to bring back the right timeline.

  


**. . .**

  


Daniel startled awake up and looked at the stars. Ursa Major looked right to him. He found the North Star and knew he was sleeping outside at Jack's cabin in Minnesota.

Ever since that camcorder had been found, Daniel had been having nightmares.

He'd mentioned the subject to Teal'c who confirmed that he'd been having dreams of days where he was still serving an Apophis who was fighting Ra. Apparently, the dreams weren't pretty, but they weren't the horrors that Daniel was having.

First he publicly murdered Sam, then he watched Jack's deaths.

He also kept flashing back to Ra and his first meeting with a Goa'uld. He wondered if some of the visceral loathing he'd felt back then was actually a form of foreknowledge from the other timelines.

It worried him a bit. If everything had gone perfectly, then the camcorder shouldn't have existed. The ZPM would already be there in the artifacts from Catherine's father's time. Or maybe he was having a hard time grasping what Sam had explained.

All he knew was that he kept dreaming that he'd killed Sam twice: once as a Goa'uld and once as a priestess - oh, and arranged for Jack to kill her once as well. He'd found Teal'c's body twice and Bra'tac's once. And Jack... no, he couldn't even think about those dreams.

"You are awake, Daniel Jackson."

"Yes."

"If your nightmares are correct, we triumphed over many things that had been wrong."

"Yes."

"My people are free."

"And there are fish in a lake where there shouldn't be."

Another voice spoke quietly, "They aren't symbiotes, Daniel."

"True."

"Another pass to the past might have created more problems again."

"I know. It's just... when I wake up, I miss you."

"But we are here, Daniel Jackson."

"All of us, Daniel. How about some night fishing?"

"You got it, Jack."

"Shall we awaken Samantha Carter?"

"Hell no. She bites."

Daniel grinned. These were his friends - even the one who bit - he couldn't imagine that any other time could be better.


End file.
